Bizarre Voyage: Summoning The Fourth Crisis

This brought him to the other records and manuals.

Li Miao flipped through them and summarized his findings.

The ”Gray Crow Bay Navigation Record” and Signs of Extinction could be analyzed in tandem.

The former, the navigation record, came from Lord Antonista’s fleet and contained the captain’s observations from the voyage.

The gist of it was that the once-prosperous Gray Crow Bay had begun to decline, and some bizarre deaths and ominous signs had started to appear.

Signs of Extinction took this a step further, directly affirming these events and asserting that a great, world-sweeping catastrophe would soon arrive, supporting this claim with various arguments.

As for the final book, Path to Liberation, it could be seen as a promotional pamphlet.

It promoted an organization called the ”Whisper of Liberation,” which claimed to be able to heal sickness and dispel confusion through rituals, with the ultimate goal of leading people down the Path to Liberation.

...This was, without a doubt, the organization the Blood Robe Priest belonged to.

”Dispelling confusion? The Path to Liberation?”

Li Miao couldn’t help but laugh. The Blood Robe Priest and the townspeople had clearly been corrupted by that Power of Madness; they were all insane.

However...

Li Miao paused.

’From a certain point of view, maybe the Whisper of Liberation wasn’t entirely wrong,’ he thought.

’Once you go mad, you’re naturally no longer confused...’

But, getting back on track, Li Miao couldn’t help but wonder, ’...So where did this Lord Antonista go?’

This Seaside Town instance was undoubtedly larger than Exile Island.

But of all the monsters they had encountered so far, only the Blood Robe Priest could be considered a boss.

The Lighthouse Keeper and the Gray Wolf Attendant didn’t have any special Warfire, and their drops were so pathetic they weren’t even worth mentioning.

Originally, Li Miao had a sliver of doubt, thinking that the Spirit Candle game might actually be unfinished.

But after reading this information, he was more certain than ever that there had to be a more hidden area within the Seaside Town that they hadn’t explored yet.

’A warehouse...’

Connecting the last sentence of the diary with the holes in the Ritual Array from the plaza, a guess began to form in Li Miao’s mind.

”Miaozi.”

Just as Li Miao was pondering, Shore suddenly appeared, saying dejectedly, ”There’s nothing back there, just a big, empty warehouse.”

”A warehouse? Take me to see it.”

Without hesitation, Li Miao put away the notebooks and had Shore lead the way.

Shore was a little confused by this, but Li Miao told him about his discoveries and theories on the way.

”Damn, this Lord and his wife were into some kinky stuff, huh?” Shore clicked his tongue in amazement, his focus clearly in the wrong place.

Before long, the two arrived at the large warehouse behind the Lord’s hall.

After pushing open the iron doors, they found that, just as Shore had said, it was a large, empty warehouse with nothing visible inside.

Li Miao began to knock on the walls and floor, searching carefully.

It wasn’t long before he really did find a clue.

With a little effort, he removed a brick covering a section of the wall near the floor, revealing a circular recess.

Seeing that he’d found something, Shore thought it would open directly, but he didn’t expect it to be just the trigger mechanism.

”You’re kidding me. Why is the switch circular? What are we supposed to use to open this?”

He was baffled.

But Li Miao had already figured out the Lord’s little secret. A flash of inspiration struck him when he saw the recess, and he once again took out [Antonista’s Collar] and placed it inside.

Sure enough, the collar fit perfectly, becoming one with the recess in the mechanism.

The next moment, a RUMBLING sound echoed out. After a slight vibration from the walls and floor, a passage leading underground appeared before the two of them.

”What the fuck? The collar is the switch?”

Shore’s brain short-circuited.

He had still underestimated the special little kinks of the Lord and his wife.

At that moment, a prompt from the Spirit Candle appeared.

After touching the fire in the warehouse to rest and sending a message to the others, the two stood up again.

”Looks like the main event is about to start.” A smile crept onto Li Miao’s lips as he drew his Law Knight’s Greatsword and Large Shield, then stepped onto the stairs leading down. ”Let’s go.”

”The way you open this hidden passage is certainly... one of a kind.”

The corner of Shore’s mouth twitched, but he followed Li Miao inside.

...

The light grew dimmer and dimmer until the passage was pitch-black.

Li Miao and Shore lit a Candlefire for illumination and continued downward.

The passage wasn’t narrow, but you couldn’t call it spacious either. Judging by the stone walls on either side, this place had likely been here for a very long time.

’Something’s not right...’

’If the mechanism reflects this Lord’s particular... tastes, then why has this underground passage existed for so long?’

’Could it be that Antonista started designing this passage the moment he became Lord?’

’Or did this place already exist, and Antonista just changed the mechanism?’

Li Miao couldn’t help but ponder these questions as he walked.

The path ahead suddenly flattened out. The two had finally reached the end of the underground passage, and the space opened up before them.

But what appeared before their eyes was an extremely grim environment.

Sparsely scattered Campfires, damp soft earth, air thick with a musty, earthy smell, and... rows upon rows of tombstones before them.

”Shit, where the hell are we? Are we still inside the fortress?”

Shore tilted his head back and looked around. Above, he could still faintly make out some earthen bricks.

Li Miao slowly advanced, preparing to examine the inscriptions on the tombstones up ahead.

But just then, there was a sudden stir in the soil nearby.

A skeletal hand, still clinging to bits of Rotten flesh, suddenly shot out and reached slowly for Li Miao, as if trying to grab him and stop him from moving forward.

But a movement of this caliber was naturally no threat to Li Miao. He easily dodged it and, in the same motion, swung his Greatsword, shattering the hand to pieces.

[You have slain Servant’s Skeletal Hand]

’So it’s actually a mob...’

’But it didn’t drop anything.’

”I can’t even see any info on it,” Shore remarked, finding it a bit strange.

”Doesn’t feel like this thing does any damage, either.”

Shore couldn’t help but laugh. This was the weakest mob he had ever seen.

”I’d like to see what you can do if you actually grab me.”

As he spoke, he foolishly stuck his foot out, letting the skeletal hand grab him.

”Sigh...”

Seeing this, Li Miao, who was standing to the side, instinctively wanted to stop him.

But he suddenly stopped. He also wanted to see if the guy would actually get himself into trouble, so he closed his mouth just as he opened it and quietly watched Shore’s antics.

Before long, the servant’s skeletal hand finally, slowly, grabbed hold of Shore’s ankle.

Once it had a firm grip.

Something unexpected happened!

White centipedes suddenly swarmed out of the dirt from the servant’s skeletal hand, crawling up Shore’s body at an incredible speed!

”Fuck!”

At the sight, the hairs on Shore’s arms stood on end and his face went pale. He ignited his Warfire and violently shook off the skeletal hand.

After forcefully slapping the white centipedes off his leg, he retreated several meters, then angrily used his Devil Fish Tail Staff to unleash a fully charged Blood Stone Burst, blowing the grave to smithereens and revealing the servant’s skeleton in the pit.

Only after seeing the servant’s skeleton turn to Ashes and disappear did Shore’s breathing even out, the pale color gradually returning to his face.

”Hahaha...”

Li Miao, who had witnessed the whole thing, was already doubled over with laughter.

Seeing the guy gloating at his misfortune, Shore became furious and started cursing Li Miao out.

After laughing for a while, Li Miao composed himself, then walked over to one of the tombstones, crouched down, and examined the epitaph.

[Sta Fortress, Latrine Servant]

[Sta Fortress, Gardening Servant]

These servants of the fortress didn’t even have names on their tombstones...

”Why would the Lord bury these dead servants here? Isn’t it a hassle to transport the bodies in?”

Shore didn’t quite understand. The underground passage they had just come down wasn’t short, and transporting corpses through it would undoubtedly be very difficult.

”Who knows.”

Li Miao shrugged and moved through the cluster of tombstones, trying to find some hidden information.